Helen Hunt Thinks Her ‘Hacks’ Character’s Shocking Exit Was “Surprising and Inevitable”

Warning: Spoilers ahead for the eighth episode of season four of Hacks.

Helen Hunt is a big fan of late-night talk shows. “I’m very plugged into that world and how it’s shifted,” she says. “It’s helped the whole country metabolize a lot of really hard things when they go to bed.”

That’s why it’s so hard for her to believe that the fourth season of Hacks, in which Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance becomes the first woman to host a major late-night show, is highlighting a glass ceiling that still exists in the real world. All of the major broadcast networks’ longest-running late-night shows are still hosted by men; the last time a woman hosted one was when Joan Rivers had a short-lived stint behind the desk of The Late Show in 1986. And even beyond the big networks, women remain underrepresented in this genre.

On Hacks, Hunt plays Winnie Landell, the network executive responsible for helping Deborah land her late-night gig. “That my character would take it on as her mission to put this woman in that position—I had fun taking that really personally,” she says. But sadly for Winnie, Deborah’s success is what leads to Winnie’s demise. In the eighth episode of season four, which aired May 15, Deborah’s show becomes the number one late-night show. While congratulating Deborah, Winnie reminds her that they also need to be pursuing a spin-off series. Deborah complains about Winnie to her media-mogul boss, played by Tony Goldwyn. Winnie is then fired, sending shockwaves through Hollywood. Deborah’s cutthroat move reminds Ava (Hannah Einbinder) that even now, her boss is looking out for number one.

Hunt, who won four Emmys for Mad About You and has starred in iconic films such as Twister and As Good as It Gets, spoke to Vanity Fair about the power dynamics at play in the episode, what she’ll miss about Winnie, and the never-ending battle between art and commerce in Hollywood.

Vanity Fair: What did you think when you learned that Winnie would be fired?

Helen Hunt: I think these writers are so great and so smart. They know that Jean’s character has to be incredibly likable and fierce and ruthless again and again, unpredictably. What you want good writing to be is surprising and inevitable.

There’s a power shift from Winnie to Deborah after Deborah’s show is a hit. How accurately does that represent Hollywood?

The thing that I found the most fun—I just watched it last night in preparation for this—is that she doesn’t say “fire her.” She says, “Tell her to back off.” She has more power than she thinks, and so she sort of passively aggressively asks for a slight course correction, and then Tony Goldwyn’s character just lops my character’s head off. And you see Jean’s shock when she hears the news. That goes back to their good writing. It’s much better than Jean diabolically planning my demise. She just complains, and then somebody’s head gets cut off for it, which seems very true to life about that moment of hubris that comes with success—when you don’t realize the power you have, and you don’t realize what you’ve lost touch with.

What did you enjoy about playing Winnie over these last two seasons?

Jean and Hannah are so good, so good together. They hold their own with each other. They let each other win. They love each other in real life, and it’s a love story, in the way that Breaking Bad was a love story. So getting to step in with good writing underneath me to that beautiful pair of actors was amazing.

I’ve experienced women like the one I was playing. It is really hard. I remember a top, top, top, top movie executive long ago who was, at that point, one of the very few [female execs], and I was developing a movie with her, and she said, “It’s good. It’s got to be even better than you think.” Meaning, as a woman and a woman’s story, it’s got to be absolutely bulletproof. I know a lot of these women. Their handshakes are strong, and they want what they want, and they’ve come in clear as day and don’t bullshit around. They tell you the truth and don’t soft-pedal it. They assume that you, as another woman who’s achieved a certain amount of success, will understand we’re not fucking around here. We’ve got to get this just right.

Did playing this role reveal anything new to you about those executives?

I don’t know if it revealed anything, but I think it reminded me retroactively to have compassion for the strong women who’ve come in and had marching orders. For me, when I’ve worked on a show or developed a show, and in walks a human being who happens to be a woman, who goes, “Right, but we need all 12 episodes before the end of the year. Great. See you later. Bye”—there’s no wiggle room. And it’s probably because she has no wiggle room with whoever she’s answering to. So it reminded me to have compassion and appreciation for those women.

This dynamic speaks to how Hollywood projects have to balance art and commerce. How do you think you do that balance successfully?

It’s impossible. I have friends who were painters and friends who were songwriters, and they can go home and paint, they can go home and write songs. Now, are people going to hear them? Are they going to get paid for them? That’s a whole other bloody battle. But if you’re making films or television, there’s no getting around the marriage of art and money. It’s awkward, painful, and brutal. It comes together successfully every blue moon.

Mad About You was such a phenomenon and hit at the time. Do you think it was easier to break out like that in TV then, or do you think it’s easier now?

It’=’s never easy. It takes a lot of luck and a lot of skill and a lot of homework, and somebody following their instincts. But I had a lot of good luck when I got Mad About You, and I was ready. I’d grown up on I Love Lucy, so they wanted me to play a married woman in New York City. Not a problem. And Hannah comes from a lineage of funny women. I don’t know how much that’s part of it, because part of it is a thing you cant describe or point to. People believe that they have it or they don’t.

Was there anything about reuniting with Jean that felt really special for the show?

It’s fun to not have to shake someone’s hand and go, I wonder if they’re going to be nice or willing to play. To just know she’s this wildly talented lifer who I’ve gotten to work with twice. We’d been doing the reboot of Mad About You, and our wonderful showrunner, Peter Tolan, had written an episode that was challenging. It was sort of more broad than we usually did, and he just called Jean and said, “Want to do me a favor?” And in walks someone who turns the whole thing into a wonderful bouquet of laughs.

Speaking of reboots, did you see the new Twisters film?

I haven’t seen it, no.

You had at one time been developing your own sequel, right?

I don’t know how relevant that is to this, honestly, but I did talk to somebody about an idea I had for it. But they made this movie, so that’s how that went down.

We don’t know where the next season of Hacks is going to go—but in theory, if you don’t return in some way as Winnie, what are you going to miss about the role?

It’s just fun to go to work with great actors and fun people. And to have the goal be to be funny and to have writer-directors throw you funny lines to try and throw out some yourself. I just love comedy. I’ve improvised since I was 16, started at the Groundlings, actually not long after Hannah’s mom, [Laraine Newman], was there. It was fun to be around funny people—as long as they’re not mean, and none of these people are mean. I’ve been really lucky in that way. When I worked with Paul [Reiser on Mad About You], he’s just a dear person who also happens to be funny. He doesn’t take bites out of people. That’s a lot of reasons why that show is as successful as it is: It’s talking about something real and serious in a funny way, with great actors and great writing. You can’t cheat those ingredients, and this show has all those things.